After last season’s final game relegation, I was determined to get Hamburger back into D2 at the first attempt, if at all possible. I knew it would be tough and so it turned out with a tight 1-0 final game win over Flamengo in the Playoffs.
Our first official trophy in Top 100 following Shield defeat at the hands of Feargal Hickey’s D5 Stuttgart in S2 and in S19 in the Cup against Paul Masters’ Celta Vigo.
Never give up!
We’d been on our best run of form all season in the final ten games or so, following yet another change in formation and tactics and a couple of marquee signings in Carlos Casemiro and Thomas Muller.
But it was definitely a team effort as some of our younger and less regular players produced crucial goals, assists and man a of the match performances when called upon, most notably Alex Collado and Marcos Antonio.
We started the season in the worst possible way with a 2-1 home defeat against Beddows’ “Super” Samp. I’d decided not to mess around with silly formations and tactics like I normally do and this was the result.
First seven matches produce a 3-1-3 8-6 10 W-D-L F-A Pts record with 3 clean sheets and 3 games where we failed to score. Not good enough by any means.
In our next 8 games our record was even worse. 3-1-4 3-5 10, 4 cleans sheets and 5 games without a goal! Something was badly wrong. We’d switched from 4-2-3-1B to 4-3-3A slowball and tried different variations of it, but things were clearly going from bad to worse.
I decided to steal someone else’s set up from another game world. I’m not proud, but it brought about instant improvement with four straight wins including a 2-0 win at then high-flying Crystal Palace followed shortly after by a 2-1 win at “D1 team” Inter.
At the halfway point our record was 10-2-7 20-15 32, 8 clean sheets and 8 games failing to hit the target at all. Not brilliant, but starting to improve?
Our first six games of the second half of the season were a massive disappointment. 2-1-3 5-8 7 (W-D-L F-A Pts), 2 clean sheets, 2 games without a goal. Worse than ever, consistently inconsistent, we did the double over then runaway leaders Zagreb while eventual champions Swansea did the double over us.
One last throw of the dice to save our season? Another tweak to the formation. To Hell and back!
Galatasaray away was our turning point. Six games unbeaten, a 5-2-1 15-7 17 (3 clean sheets, 1 failed to score) record in the next eight games thrust us up the table and into the playoff places. Our only defeat at in-form Dnipro was probably due to being without our then defensive midfield lynchpin Nemanja Matic who we sold to D5 champions Shakhtar.
Carlos Casemiro joined us from Fenerbahce in time to make his scoring and MotM debut at home to Spurs. We gave up top scorer Breel Embolo and top assister Alfonso Pedraza (I used him mainly as a left winger), so it was a big risk for us.
Simon Banza had been scoring almost a goal-a-game in his substitute appearances, though, and the ever willing Mason Mount switched from midfield to the wing to replace Pedraza.
We won our next three to set up a do or die game at home to Inter. A draw would have been enough for us. I started key man Casemiro on the bench for the preceding Sassuolo game, but he got booked in the dying minutes after being subbed on, and missed the Inter match through suspension. Inter went all out attack, as they had to, and we just didn’t have enough quality on the day.
Our final five games saw a 4-0-1 10-4 12 record, with 3 clean sheets.
Second half of the season 11-3-5 30-19 36, 8 clean sheets, 3 games failed to score. 16 cleans sheets in the season for Big Woj! (And two more in the playoffs!)
Galatasaray onwards: 9-2-2 25-11 29, 6 clean sheets, 1 failed to score. More like it!
We started the season with this eleven and bench. Over-reliant on some short-term signings of veterans Silva, Milner, Pogba and Matic, but with enough decent options on the bench, and a few hopes for development potential.
Of that starting eleven, only Woj, Saiss and Mount remain at the club, with Bijol, Malacia and Alario on the bench also leaving.
I replaced Milner with Hamari Traore at right back, Silva with Lucas Martinez Quarta, Saiss with Jakub Kiwior and Pedraza with Fabiano Parisi, the latter three could all get ratings rises in the next reviews (not all necessarily this time, but in future reviews).
Casemiro replaced Matic, and has been absolutely outstanding in the short time he’s been at the club. A true talisman. He could well drop, but he’s still class even without his legs.
Yacine Adli should get a rise and replaced Paul Pogba, while Mason Mount takes over form Morgan Gibbs-White. MGW should get a rise despite Forest’s lowly league finish, and hopefully a real life move to a better club. He was one we really wanted to keep, but we were really short of quality up front after losing Embolo and Pedraza, both going into the home straight and with one eye on S23 whatever division we ended up in.
German legend Thomas Muller joined us in exchange, and scored the winner in the Playoff final! He’s another who will likely drop, although still showing his class in the Euros now.
Muller replaces Ritsu Doan, who went to Brugge in the deal that brought Kiwior in.
Mason Greenwood deserves a rise after his comeback season with Getafe, and takes over from Mount on the wing.
Finally, Simon Banza steps up to replace Embolo. He should get another rise after a superb season in Portugal.
On the bench we have the experienced Saiss and Balbuena at centre back, with Ricardo Esgaio and Neco Williams covering at full back.
In midfield we have Ibrahima Sissoko, Nampalys Mendy, Marcos Antonio. On the wings Diego Lainez and Alex Collado, and up front Lassina Traore and Hugo Ekitike. Not nearly as much depth as I’d like, but a couple of rises likely will help a little bit.
We don’t have much of a youth team any more, although I hope there are a few decent prospects. But they’re a long way from my first team, and from most people’s youth teams!
All in all, though, I feel pretty happy with things at the moment and I’m not planning on changing too much unless I need to or I can improve the first team quality or depth. It would be good to improve my centre back and left back options, and the same in midfield and attack, but right now I’m happy with the squad as it is.
Let’s see how the new season pans out. It looks like being a very exciting one in D1 and D4 for sure. I just hope we can continue where we left off last season and avoid any serious injuries. Then we can certainly finish in the top ten if not challenge for the playoffs again.
Top 100 
Leave a comment